Celebrated the BFF's birthday at her restaurant of choice, Anju. We took an 8pm seating so that we would have plenty of time to linger over the meal. Wisely skipped all the soju and chungju; opted for a makgeolli. It came in the form of a 550ml bottle of cameo makgeolli from Nakcheon, ABV 6%. Perfect. We weren't intending to get drunk, although we put away two bottles. Oof.
The domi was super appetising — cured red snapper with endives, apples. arugula leaves, kombu, ssamjang and ginger dressing. The tomato naengchae is for people who love tomatoes. We do. The slices of beefsteak tomato was robust and juicy, and sat on a bed of thinly sliced tasty beef (cooked, like bulgogi) with candied walnut and plum dressing. The squid ink battered oyster with pickled fennel and flying fish roe dip was quite tasty. It went well with the makgeolli!
I couldn't resist the yukhoe. I love beef tartare, and as far as this goes, the Korean iteration is gorgeous. This one came with egg yolk, pureé, crispy seaweed, Korean pear, mustard seed, shiso and caper. The crispy seaweed went beautifully with the beef tartare. So perfectly savory. Its ratio of ingredients is soooo good. I would say that it's one of the best in town.
The greedy peeps wanted the abalone gim angel hair pasta with perilla, pickled shallots and seaweed. Okaaaay. It was nice, but I could do a better version. Heh. The thing about these fine-dining Korean restaurants, there isn't any complimentary banchan served. Whatever you might want, is chargeable as a side dish or an appetizer. We had limited space for food, so we only ordered a side of baek kimchi with radish and red dates. I'm not fond of red kimchi, but I like white kimchi because there isn't any gochugaru used.
That sotbap was great. Scorched rice with dried radish leaves topped with charcoal-grilled seabass. As the server split up the fish to mix into the rice, I idly wondered about bones. :PPpppPP As such, I picked through every mouth of rice rather carefully. Hurhurhur. I wanted to get a portion of the sotbap to-go, but it was a limited quantity dish (stated on the menu), and didn't have a portion of that as a takeout. Too bad then.
The galbi jjim was beautiful. Beef short ribs with potatoes, carrots and mushrooms. I'm not a big fan of it, but the BFF and the man loved it, so they really went for all the beef. Ooof. It totally complemented the sotbap.
I was curious about the desserts. There were only two options on this menu. The hwachae of watermelon sorbet and juice, yuzu jelly, fresh fruits and honey tuile sounded really good. But I needed some space for a candle, and only the sweet potato dessert had the space to hold a candle. The other humans had no interest to have two desserts. Hahaha. Okay. Ordered the sweet potato. It came in a brown cute heap of salted caramel, sweet potato ice-cream, brown butter crumble, charcoal curd foam and roasted sweet potato skin powder. The BFF loved it. Ahhhh good.
Happy Birthday, BFF! Life is so much more fun when we do it totgether. Here's to many more good years of laughter and being silly. To your strength, health and humor. 🥂♡
No comments:
Post a Comment